let's face it - JGL was a miscast

Have you seen the documentary Man on Wire? JGL sounds exactly like the real guy

Hell no. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was perfectly cast here. His accent was completely convincing as far as I am concerned. I didn't even recognise the bastard until I came here.

I thought he was perfect in the role, the right mix of charisma, arrogance, and derring-do. And yeah, I thought he did well with the French accent.

JGL is never a miscast :p

"Can you hear them singing?"

You're nuts.

The role required a reasonably bankable name and someone of roughly Petit's height, build and age at the time (25). Not some 6 ft DiCaprio type guy. That right there narrows it down to a handful of people. On top of that you needed someone with a dancer background or at least a natural knack for acrobatics, a cirkus artist wannabe. That narrows it down to about... JGL. He was tailor made for this gig.

Did he knock it out of the park with speaking French? Not quite, but it's obvious he worked really hard on it. Ironically, I'd say he handled his French dialogue marginally better than speaking English with a French accent. Out of all the attempts by American actors to speak foreign languages on film it was in the top 10%. Way above average, and leagues more authentic than, say, his hairdo (the real Petit had a mullet at the time, they probably gave it a shot but found it too corny looking). But I suppose you'd rather have seen Depardieu, Vincent Cassel or Jean Reno on that wire? One is a whale, the other is 49 yo and 6'1" and the third is 67, but hey, screw the priorities that matter the most and make it all about accents.

I liked JGL in the role, but he didn't look anything like the real Petite.

Personally in terms of simple resemblance, I would have cast Matt Smith.

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35 million dollars to make this twaddle and they employ a nonentity in the lead. What a waste!

Let's face it: he wasn't.

His character was a flamboyant, arrogant passionate artist who was driven by a singular, dangerous and audacious goal, something that his character described in the movie as a "coup", something he only had one shot at. And some people were expecting subtlety with that kind of character?